Many different industries can benefit from virtual reality technology. It seems a lot of customer service providers will flock to using virtual assistants by 2020.Those are the findings of research firm Gartner, which predicts a hefty increase in virtual customer assistants in the near future. It is evident this will result in a lot of new avatar-based solutions, which will effectively benefit from virtual reality technology.

Gartner Sees a Bright Future for Virtual Assistants

It is kind of interesting to see how the world of customer service operations will change in the future. The way things look right now, most people are still worried they aren’t dealing with a real person. Since most call centers require their staffers to stick to certain scripts, rather than think outside the box, it’s only normal things need to improve sooner rather than later. According to Gartner, virtual assistants are the right way to go in this regard.

The research indicates 25% of customer service operations will start flocking to VR-based technologies in the future. Virtual customer assistants are the current hot trend in this particular industry, yet there is still a lot of work to be done before this service will effectively go mainstream. After all, most companies want to automate the customer service procedures through these virtual representatives, even though complex situations can still be escalated to human agents.

Gartner Managing VP Gene Alvarez comments as follows:

“As more customers engage on digital channels, VCAs are being implemented for handling customer requests on websites, mobile apps, consumer messaging apps and social networks. This is underpinned by improvements in natural-language processing, machine learning and intent-matching capabilities.A great VCA offers more than just information. It should enrich the customer experience, help the customer throughout the interaction and process transactions on behalf of the customer.”

Whether or not this will bring more positive attention to the virtual reality ecosystem, remains to be seen. It is evident VR will also play a big role in the world of customer service operations moving forward. At the same time, people are less likely to sue a VR headset when dealing with technical support. The technology powering VR can certainly be used to create a more interactive experience through virtual avatars, though.

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